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My son, like many young men of his generation, is îaken with surreal online comic strips - much better than the bland fare served up by local newspapers, he assures me. Well, sometimes I "get" them and sometimes they defeat me. They tend to presume too close an acquaintance with popular culture and the world of video gaming or an intimacy with the vocabulary of instant messaging. Sometimes, however, I'm startled and delighted by their irreverent juxtapositions. One particular Sam and Fuzzy cartoon (www.samandfuzzy.com) has stuck with me. Fuzzy cries out in pain after receiving a blow from a stray Frisbee: "Help," he howls, "I've been morally wounded !"The Frisbee thrower offers assistance, but the victim's pal, Sam, struck by the absurdity of the utterance, responds with not-so-gentle sarcasm: "Can't you see he's morally wounded? Hurry! Call a philosopher!"
I think that cartoon was made for me. I'm a philosopher who works in health care, and it might be said that as a clinical ethicist, I minister to the morally...